talkmagic.co.uk

by **Replicant** » Apr 30th, '09, 09:55

I wish we could catch each other more than once a day on here, but it's difficult at the moment. I'm on a Dell today but was on a Compaq yesterday. Here is today's "snapshot"...

The thing is, on this Dell laptop, the primary partition is not even showing up under My Computer like it was on the Compaq. Very strange. And still no access to the contents of the HD. I think I may have to get the data recovery people involved shortly and hope they can retrieve the data intact.

by **yddraig** » Apr 30th, '09, 13:44

Looks like it can only see 75GB on your disk and that 75GB needs formatting..... Without having the disk in my paws it's hard to go further and even then...... We may be down to the final option of the data recovery, sorry I couldn't help further

, and you're right, it is difficult on a once a day post. If you want, you have my phone number, I don't mind you using it at all.

G

by **Replicant** » Apr 30th, '09, 14:04

Thanks for your efforts on this, Graeme. I've just spoken to two data recovery companies; the first one said it shouldn't be a problem to recover all the data at a cost of between £200-400. The second one said the same thing, only their price is only £97-175. May have to go with them.

The insurance company said they will either try and repair my broken laptop or give us an equivalent model. I thought they would just give us X amount to spend on a new laptop; at least then I would get to choose one myself.

by **magicofthemind** » Apr 30th, '09, 15:00

Try booting in Linux first - it's free.

Barry

by **dalepearson** » May 11th, '09, 00:11

This is my first post on here, so I must introduce myself in the appropriate area later.

You often find with these enclosures that they can sometimes want to change the partion formating slightly, so this might explain why you are seeing a reduced amount of available storage.

Your machine wont be able to see the space as useable at it will need to be appropriately mounted in Windows, and this will require a format (Windows is good like that).

Sounds like the drive might have failed in some way from the encounter, and some sectors have been damaged.

I cant make any promises but if you wanted, I would be happy to have a look at the drive for you and see if I could do some recovery, as I have some recovery and forensic software that might do the job.

by **Replicant** » May 12th, '09, 07:11

Thanks for the offer, Dale. The laptop and hard drive are still with Power Play; they said they would attempt a recovery on the hard drive for an additional, modest fee. I should be hearing from them this week.

by **dalepearson** » May 12th, '09, 08:41

No problem, I didnt realise you had sent it away already.
Hope they recover what you need.

by **Replicant** » May 16th, '09, 11:25

They couldn't repair the laptop so I've asked for a cash settlement of £280 instead of the basic laptop that they offered me. The money has gone toward this little beauty...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159426

I should be hearing about the hard drive recovery on Monday.

by **Replicant** » May 29th, '09, 15:36

Oh, dear. It looks like I may have to part with £450 to recover some of the contents of my damaged hard drive. Received this email from the data recovery company today:

The initial diagnostic has been completed on your Hard Drive, and the engineers have reported back that the problem is that the Head Disk Assembly Unit (HDA) has failed.

The Technician has advised the next stage of the recovery process is to replace the complete head disk assembly unit (HDA), rebuild the HDD and then attempt to extract your data.

We attempted the procedure using donor parts. This process was successful, however the level of corruption on the data image was high, almost 95% Rapid Data Recovery do not hold the necessary Forensic tools to decorrupt this data, however our partner company, Fields Data Recovery, can perform this process, at a reduced cost for our clients.

The costs of the recovery is as follows:

Data Recovery From Digital Media:

£395 plus VAT

Please find attached a file list of all recoverable data which we envisage to be approx 32GB.

In cases such as this Fields have a 99.9% success rate.

With your permission I will package up the drive and arrange delivery over to Fields lab based in Hammersmith.

All of Fields Data Recovery Terms and Conditions can be found on their website, www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk <http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk/>
You have incurred no costs and If you want the drive returned there are two options:
FOC via Second class Royal Mail (Non-trackable) and for a small charge (£12.50+Vat) via UPS courier services.
If you wish to proceed with the courier service or the recovery, please call 0207 310 8839 with debit/credit card details, alternatively please fill out the payment details below.
Name on card:
Card no:
Card type: (Visa, Maestro etc)
Exp date:
CVV: (Last 3 digits rear)
Issue: (If applicable)

Regards

I've not had a chance to look at the list of recoverable data yet, but I'll have to see if it's worth the money.

by **scamwatch** » Jul 18th, '10, 07:29

That looks like the website Rapid Data Recovery, Google them to see the complaints against them before you use them

What you paid was way over the odds

by **mark_c1975** » Jul 18th, '10, 19:57

Looks like some kind of bot picked up on your data recovery message.

For the record, I'm a data recovery tech, and I also run a home recovery business. I won't post the link here, but it's in my profile.

If anyone has this problem, feel free to drop me a message at the address on my website.

Cheers,

talkmagic.co.uk

Calling all computer experts!

Rapid Data

Who is online